Chapter 4: Girl, Coaxes
AFTER undergoing a traumatizing shock, the Spirit Priestess returned to her room accompanied by Lambert and Wolfie, leaving the other three to continue their discussion in the headmaster’s office. Headmaster Grindieda addressed the last topic that needed attending to.
“Now then, the reason why the Witch’s Council has been tenaciously seeking you out is—”
“To secure a talented new recruit,” Oswald finished in a harder voice than usual.
What he discovered after risking capture by sneaking into the Five Eldra Steorra’s mansion was that they were secretly going along with a plan concocted by the Witch’s Council. Grasping the gist of their plans during his short infiltration, he simply summarized their intentions from the list he had found among the documents in the professor’s desk.
“Their current agenda consists of collecting rare materials and securing talented witches by luring them into their folds. It’s anyone’s guess what they’re trying to make.”
Flipping his shining golden threads of hair over his shoulder, Ini snorted and turned his derisive gaze on Oswald. “Probably the same kind of junk you’re always making, cretin. Sheesh. Intelligent humans never use their knowledge for good, and they only make things worse when they put their heads together. Grindieda, you are a member of the Witch’s Council. Don’t you know what they are plotting?”
“The only information that comes to an honorary advisor is paltry scraps without a lick of real intel.” The headmaster cast down her rose-brown eyes and exhaled. “Wizmac, the current chairman, seems to find this old lady who doesn’t play to his tune to be a rather large nuisance. I presume he’s plotting to have me overthrown sooner or later so that he can insert one of the Five Eldra Steorra in the headmaster’s seat.”
Of course, she would never allow that to come to be. Grindieda held to a strict set of rules, but the one loose thread threatening her plans was her very own apprentice.
“Oswald, I hope I am wrong, but you haven’t already…”
Immediately guessing his master’s misgivings, Oswald lifted his shoulders in a slight shrug and honestly denied her false assumption. “You think I joined that cult, Master?”
“I’m worried because it is within the realm of something you would do.”
Knowing how dangerous her apprentice really was brought a scowl to Grindieda’s face. She wouldn’t put it past him to leap at any job opportunity if someone wagged enough cash and rare resources before him.
Sensing her utter lack of faith in him, Oswald narrowed his unfathomable blue eyes and clearly voiced his convictions. “I only create what I want. I couldn’t care less how others use my creations, but I don’t create things that don’t interest me.”
Put another way, he was essentially declaring he would happily join forces with the Witch’s Council if their request piqued his interest. That part of him had never changed no matter how hard she pounded rules and ethics into him during his school years.
Sighing, his master blamed her past self for creating this monster as she muttered, “…I knew I should have kept you on a tight leash.”
Oswald’s abilities as a witch had already surpassed his much older master. I should have never banished him from Elminage on that day.
Enacting the same tone she had when she exiled him, Grindieda ordered, “I hereby order you as your master, headmaster, and one who wishes for peace: remain here, Oswald.”
“……”
“You may set your mind at ease, for as long as you are here, I will protect you from the Witch’s Council.”
In the back of the silent young man’s mind, he saw one girl’s sunny smile, but erased it from thought with a somber nod.
✦ ✦ ✦
NICHIKA had returned to their room where she remained in a stupor with the lights off. Too much had happened for her brain to keep up, and she absently stroked Wolfie on the edge of the bed. His fur was a little rough in patches, but her heart was partly soothed by petting him. The wolf nudged her arm with the tip of his wet nose and whined.
“Nichika, cheer up,” he sniffled encouragingly.
“What are you going to do now, Wolfie?”
“Master told me I can do whatever I want. He said he’d free me of my familiar contract if I wanna go with you instead.”
“I see…”
Nichika was set to depart in two days since Headmaster Grindieda was preparing something for her. She even offered to lend her a student from Elminage as an escort if she wanted one. But what good would that do her? Would this student have even a quarter of the knowledge Oswald did? Would they nag her when she became discouraged and lazy? Would they roughly grab her arm and lead the way when she couldn’t take another step?
Nichika stopped petting Wolfie and hugged her knees to her chest. Her faltering voice spilled through the space between her arms and knees. “He’s such a jerk, though.”
Since when did she start trusting him this much? Maybe he was right and she was acting like a newborn duckling. Maybe she had become attached to him because she didn’t have anyone else and didn’t know better. And yet some corner of her heart wouldn’t stop screaming. The rational side of her put a lid over that piece that continued crying: “I don’t want to be apart from him.”
“That jerk said he’d keep his promises even unto death…” she grumbled under her breath despite having just stuffed those feelings in the corner.
How many times have I cried since coming to this world? I’m supposed to be getting stronger, not weaker. I’ll make this the last time I cry. I have to stop crying.
The sound of rapping on glass echoed through Nichika’s room, interrupting her thoughts. Startled, she looked toward the window where someone floated with one hand on their broom. One look at that flashy green hair and lanky figure told her who it was.
“Lambert?!” she cried.
“O-P-E-N U-P!” he mouthed beyond the glass.
After a moment’s hesitation, Nichika undid the lock and pulled the window open. He rode in on the cool breeze. Coolly sticking his landing, he flashed his trademark overly friendly grin.
“Hiya there. Fine evening, ain’t it?”
“G-Good evening?”
Lambert drew back his right leg and bowed with his right hand pressed against his abdomen, and he held out a flower he made appear from thin air in his left hand. The lovely pink flower had a delicate, slightly folded petal that resembled a butterfly’s wings. Yellow eyes twinkling, he teased, “To bid adieu to the fair lady before her journey.”
“What kind of flower is it?”
“Sweet pea.”
Nichika was unfamiliar with flower language, so she didn’t know the hidden meaning behind his choice. She accepted it anyway and clenched the flower stem in front of her chest.
“You must’ve cried a lot to end up with a face looking like that,” he commented on her red eyes swollen from crying her heart out.
“Buzz off…” She rubbed her eyes with her fists.
Lambert shrugged. “Good ol’ Oswald is a helpless fool, making a girl cry. Then again, he’s made countless women cry.”
Nichika wanted to cover her ears. A part of her felt like she was special to Oswald because she was his apprentice, but she meant nothing to him, as evidenced by the ease with which he ended their contract.
“Why are you crying?” Lambert asked in a sympathetic voice, breaking the dam holding back her tears and pent-up feelings.
Struggling to keep her sobs in check, Nichika started organizing her feelings aloud. “That pighead’s…not my…type…at all…”
“Yeah.”
“He’s arrogant…doesn’t think about others…and a crude, dangerous jerk.”
“Sure is.”
“But…I’d rather not go at all if it’s not with him!” she blurted, then gasped.
She looked up at the sound of Lambert whistling. He smirked at her. “Good girl, you did well speaking your true feelings,” he teased. “But dang, you went right for the ‘I can’t live without that person!’ kinda line. I was gonna wedge myself into the hole he left, but there’s no room for me to butt in.”
“I d-didn’t…it’s not what it sounds like! I’m shy around strangers and would rather travel with someone I’m already used to. That’s all!”
He winked at the girl who frantically tried to explain herself with crimson cheeks. Grabbing her wrist, he led her to the window. He leapt onto the windowsill and straddled the broom he’d been carrying.
“Then let’s go make that dream come true,” he proposed out of the blue.
“How?”
“Look after the house, lil’ wolf!”
“I don’t know what’cha doing, but have fun!”
Nichika was already hanging more than halfway out the window. Screaming, she instinctively clung to his hand.
“Come on. Fly away with me! Or you’ll fall to your death.”
Nichika fumbled for the broom dangling from her waist and commanded it to become full size. Following his soft ascent, she took off into the night sky where two moons shone. Flying after the broom ahead of her, she took out her confusion on him.
“What in the world are you scheming now?!”
“Say, Nichika, are you the sad type who puts up with the harsh reality shoved onto them without uttering a single complaint about it?”
“Huh?”
She had no idea what he was going on about. He looked over his shoulder at her and flashed a winning grin that said it all. “Those who complain the loudest win. Sometimes things surprisingly go the way you want them to if you just say something about it. No joke.”